When Lucasfilm and Disney announced the cast of the new Star Wars film on Tuesday, fans fell into two camps: those celebrating the return of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, and those furiously Googling the new (young) cast members. Meet the new class of Star Wars stars:

John Boyega

John Boyega (centre) with the cast of Attack the Block. Photograph: Richard Saker

Best known for Attack the Block, the 2011 film in which a teenage gang defends their south London block from aliens, Boyega is a 22-year-old actor and presumably a lead in the new Star Wars film. He would also be the first black lead in the series (though James Earl Jones deserves that nod for the voice of Darth Vader, he was not credited in the original release of either Episodes IV or V, at his own request, and so by technicality does not make the mark).

Daisy Ridley

Probably the least known of all the cast members, Ridley has primarily done British TV work (Mr Selfridge, Silent Witness), along with these series of shorts that a young actors' production company posted online.

Adam Driver

Rumors that Driver had been cast as a "Darth Vader-like" villain began weeks ago, so the confirmation of his casting is no surprise. The 30-year-old is known mostly for this work on the HBO series Girls and small indie films, and as the Guardian's Ben Child notes, he has the size (6ft 3in and "weaselly yet muscular, like a geeky American football quarterback"), voice and acting chops to pull off villainous.

Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver. Photograph: eOne

If he is indeed the nemesis of Luke Skywalker & Co, he has bodybuilder-size shoes to fill (David Prowse, who wore the original suit, stood at 6ft 6in). "He only has to ask Hayden Christensen for advice if he wants to find out how it can all go horribly wrong."

His deft performance in that film earned him heaps of critical plaudits, about which he told the Guardian's Catherine Shoard: "The irony hasn't been lost on me … Being celebrated for playing someone who wasn't. … I know those people; it could have easily just gone the other way for me too."

Andy Serkis comes out of the hobbit's home during the film premiere for The Hobbit. Photograph: Stephen Barker/Rex Features

Serkis, who's been acting and directing for years, will almost certainly don the motion-capture suit again and grace the Star Wars universe with … whatever it is he and the folks at Lucasfilm would like. Ideally the new film will bridge the gap from Star Wars' original models and masks to the prequels disastrous CGI-mania: Serkis is precisely the man to help them do that.

Domhnall Gleeson

Gleeson, who played a Weasley in Harry Potter and a simpering bandit in the Coen brothers' True Grit, may be more recognizable to audiences.

Domhnall Gleeson, third from the left and Brid Brennan in Shadow Dancer.

The Irish actor has not shied from contradictory performances: he's taken roles in Anna Karenina (as the good guy, Levin), as the lead in time-travel rom-com About Time, and as an IRA soldier in Shadow Dancer. He's also appearing with Michael Fassbender in Frank.

Max von Sydow

Carl Adolph von Sydow's resume reads like a brief summary of 20th and 21st centuary film history: he was the knight in The Seventh Seal, a priest in The Exorcist, and Harry Haller in Steppenwolf. He was in Conan the Barbarian, David Lynch's Dune, Ghostbusters II, and has played Jesus.

He acted for the legendary director Ingmar Bergman in 11 films. He narrated Moomins and the Comet Chase. The 85-year-old polyglot does it all, and the Guardian has called him the "god of gravitas". About his acting name, he told Hadley Freeman:

"Yes! Ha ha ha! During my military service, I performed a sketch in which I played a flea called Max. So when critics kept misspelling my name, I decided to change it and thought, 'Ah! Max!'"

The originals

As for the rest of the cast, there are no surprises that the original actors, as rumored, will be part of the new films. Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker are back. But others are missing: where are Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones? Will Frank Oz return in some way? (The disembodied voices of Jedi ghosts do have a way of making it back into these films, after all.)

The site Badass Digest posts what it claims is a partial synopsis of the plot for the next instalment in the franchise, directed by JJ Abrams Spoiler alert: although these details remain unconfirmed, those eager to know as little as possible about Episode VII may wish to avoid reading this article

In just two years, Domhnall Gleeson has gone from quirky support to major star. He talks to Alexis Petridis about losing 27 pounds for Angelina Jolie, falling out with his dad on set – and landing a part in Star Wars